we really don't need a lot of food....

[JustPinkFinch]

Are any other females 40+ quite surprised - after taking MJ or similar - at how little they actually need to eat in order to lose weight?

I am eating a healthy lunch, healthy dinner and a snack (either fruit or nuts). On this I am losing 1-2lbs a week.

It feels restrictive vs what I am used to and there is no way I could have done this without MJ.

Once I reach my target, I can increase intake a bit in order to maintain. That I can probably do without MJ, but if not I will stay on the drug long term.

I am very grateful this drug is available, but at the same time a little sad at how little food I actually need.

I am active too. I do not lead a sedentary life.

All my thin friends eat like birds, so I shouldn't be surprised. But I am!

i think it’s 50/50. (as in people that want to stay on it and who want to come off it) For me, I’m using this to shift a lot of weight, but then I hope to manage it myself. It’s not a medication that automatically reverts you to the serious health problem (or not in my case, I was pre diabetic with high blood pressure and high cholesterol). Lifestyle plays a big part. I’m nowhere near goal, but I hope I will have changed my habits and mindset enough by then to be able to cope without it. I really don’t want to take it if I don’t need it. And I’m too mean to keep paying out all that money long term!

I did smile when I saw your question because I know exactly what you mean. However much I love being five stone lighter, a tiny ignored part of me does miss food grazing! I am only 5’1.5”, 59 years old with PCOS and an under active thyroid; I’m now 10 stone 9 with a stone to go before I’m “normal” BMI (I know there’s a lot of BMI haters but it’s as useful a way of setting an initial goal as anything else). I eat an average of 1000 calories a day. I stopped losing when I was eating 1200 a day so I guess that’ll be about what I can eat when I’m done, maybe a little less. The truth is, every time I’ve dropped my calories I’ve wondered how on earth I’ll manage but my body just stores food very efficiently. I just don’t get hungry (arse! Bugger! I wish it were otherwise!). I’m 32% muscle so I’m not fading away, but I do understand your wistfulness! Having said that, I’m 38% fat from a start point when I got the body composition scales a year ago of 49%, so it’s worth it, but I do confess to the occasional bout of food nostalgia!

Five stone is a fabulous loss. I dream of being where you are! Well done.

@JustPinkFinch i listened to an interview with Johan Hari, who’s written a lot of books on depression, drug use, addiction - most recently one on weight loss drugs. He himself has been taking them for (I think) 18 months and he doesn’t plan to ever stop. Something he talked a lot about was what I think you are alluding to. If food has been a big part of you life, what will take it’s place when it no longer interests you? I think it’s fascinating.

DH has always been a foodie, very into cheese and wine (we live in France partly for this reason). Although he’s not using WL drugs, he has drastically changed the way he eats and he’s had to step away from things that used to give him pleasure, comfort, things that were almost part of his identity. He’s has to become a different person - one that doesn’t indulge in cheese and good wine.

Hari also asked what do people do who used to really on food for comfort, and that is now gone - will they succumb to depression? Will they find other ways to dull the pain now that a bucket of KFC won’t do the trick?

@Andoutcomethewolves that isn’t good - you will end up with issues and really need to up this

I hear you OP. If I have a couple of days of “normal” eating by which I mean small portions of normal food, 3 meals a day and no treats I gain weight.
to lose 1 or 2 lb each week I need to eat very, very little. I either have 2 m&s salads of around 270-300 cals each and a small bowl of raspberries after the evening salad, or one salad for lunch and either a 300 cal soup or a pot of cottage cheese for dinner. There is no way I could do that without the meds. I would be climbing the walls!

@thinkfast definitely think it’s a mindset - I’m managing similar without MJ now - although currently on holiday so totally blowing it for 10 days - probably more like 2.4kg a day including drink

So about 700 calories? How do you intend to maintain your weight loss? Will you just live on a highly restricted diet forever? You must have messed up your metabolism somehow along the way because that’s not normal and will lead to long term health issues because you won’t be able to get all the nutrients you need on that. I can eat 2200 cals per day and not gain any weight and I don’t even work out apart from walking. I would look into reverse dieting if I were you.

I’ll cross the maintenance bridge if and when I get there but nice bit of shaming in your comments, thanks. I probably messed up my metabolism at 15 when I was diagnosed with insulin resistance.

No, I wasn't surprised, I'm also short.

I used to like watching those survival programs when they drop someone in the jungle/savanah/wherever and they have to survive with what little they have/find.

Most people lose a couple of stone over the 3 weeks they had to be there for that particular show, then there was this little japanese woman, there for 3 weeks, ate very little - the occasional lizard, no big game. She lost 2 lb.

It brought it home to me how little a small person actually takes to run, and why anything much over 1000 cals and I don't lose weight.

What make it worse is the more successful you are, the more that amount goes down - I've lost 20kg, so now everything I do takes less energy so I need fewer calories still to keep losing weight.

I did the fast800 for a bit during lockdown.

I quite liked it - the amount of time I dedicated to making those 800 calories as delicious as possible made up for the low amount of food.

Unfortunately, that's also what made it unsustainable once life went back to commutes and school runs

I agree OP, I'm short, in my 50s with a desk job, to just STAY the same weight a TDEE calculator said I needed about 1600 calories a day, so to lose weight I need less than that and IMO that is very restrictive!!!
I'm on MJ and losing 1-2lbs a week, it would be very hard to stick to what I feel is very low calorie intake without it. I love food!
I wish I had the metabolism of a teenage boy!

I suppose the nearer you are to your ideal body weight, the harder it is to lose that weight. If a person of 5 ft 4 is say 15 stones, they will be eating a fair number of calories to maintain that weight, so going down to even 2000 calories a day, they will lose weight but still be able to feel nourished and have the odd treat.
However if someone is 10 stone and maintaining their weight at say 1600 calories, then they will really find what they are allowed to eat fairly restrictive if they want to lose the llbs

Agree @thinkfast . The ignorant or shaming comments on MN are one of the main reasons I delete MN for long periods. You’re a bad “dieter/mother/person in general” get tiresome. Also, the competitive undereating and (now!) competitive overeating and weight loss rates and so on …. I prefer Reddit - where though there is rudeness - generally people seem more supportive, friendly, and even agree and thank each other. Posters on MN rarely even get a thanks or thumbs up - at least in my experience!

Anyway back to the question, which is interesting for many reasons. It’s quite difficult to change lifestyle after a certain point. Eg this morning I had a slice of marmalade on toast. I’m sure someone will come along and scold me for that and tell me how do I expect to lose weight yada yada. But it’s something I enjoy and hard to give up. The main way I lose weight in MJ is smaller portions but even that has stalled recently. To get closer to goal that slice of toast would be probably need to be replaced by a fruit salad. Or, as some people have said, there will have to be a lot more low calorie meals interspersed: salads, fruit, soup. It’s something I’m working towards - and on a positive side it can mean less time in kitchen ….

I’m 5 ft 6 inches and 12 st 9 lbs. In my 60s, not especially active. Anything more than a strict 1000 a day and I won’t lose weight. Since I’m on about 1200- 1400 I’m just stuck there at the moment.

The poster who mentioned the Japanese woman on a desert island with a bunch of Western eaters who lose weight dramatically is a pause for thought. Will I have to change from marmalade and toast to Udon noodle soup for breakfast? (half serious, half facetious).

Just to add, WLI has helped me lose 20+ lbs. It’s helped me but it’s been slow. Partly age I think, partly I don’t overeat much anyway to start with, and it’s mostly healthyish already, a slow responder to MJ, and also metabolism etc etc.

To drop another stone I would really have to make some further, even major, changes and eat less than 1000 calories. Just saying ….

the occasional lizard !

@UpsideDownChairs 😂

To clarify, that slice of marmalade toast is a weekly, not daily event!

MJ has brought it home to me what a greedy individual I am. I was massively over eating, so even though my diet was broadly made up of 'healthy' options, I was always going to get fat by stuffing my face.

I'm trying to use the support of MJ to reset my eating habits, much smaller portions, getting used to what a small portion looks like, eating slowly, drinking more water. Not comfort eating, not boredom eating, not using food as a reward, pay attention to when I've had enough, not full.

I dont think the poster sounds judgemental, its just factual

I used to think I only overate a little bit, and it is easy to put on stone after stone after stone, year on year while only eating a few hundred calories over your maintenance, that is a fact

But I think its a myth for some of us when the narrative is really pushed that for most people it takes ages for that weight to go on. It doesnt for all of us, some of us have the capacity to put on weight very quickly because we massivly overeat.

In my case it got me up to 20 stone and now Im horrified at the amount I would eat, I think back to 5 course meals that I could chow down quite easily. I am very greedy, its just my nature but its what makes people overweight and stay that way, you have to eat a fair amount to maintain a weight like that.

I very much love food still but just eat smaller portions of it, what I should have been eating anyway. Its the food industry/food manufacturers interest to make us overeat and think we need more than we really do.

@Ifyounevergiveup I have 'food nostalgia' too. It's a weird feeling, missing something you know isn't good for you.

Yesterday I had:
a small latte for breakfast
a lentil and roasted vegetable salad for lunch (500 cals)
a tuna include salad for dinner (295 cals)
a nectarine and a cup of tea
8 glasses of water

Today I’ve gained 2 lb…..help.

How often are you weighing yourself? Over what period have you gained 2lb?

Im weighing myself daily, every morning on an empty stomach, so the 2 lb gain was overnight.

Perhaps I should probably stick to weekly weigh-ins but I find that doesn’t give me enough motivation.

Yeah, don't weigh yourself every day. You'll see natural daily fluctuations that don't give you a true idea of your overall pattern of weight loss. You've said weekly weighing doesn't motivate you, but what does seeing a small increase from one day to the next do?

I’m a daily weigher and I’ve decided I’m going to weigh every day for the rest of my life..: but - you can’t draw a direct correlation between what you ate the day before and what you weigh this morning… I mean sometimes you can - a big pasta meal at 8pm with a salty sauce might put me up on the scales the next day due to water retention whereas a night out where I skip dinner and drink loads of alcohol would put me down the next day because I’ll be dehydrated and probably have an upset tummy - but over time the calories in the alcohol are more likely to cause me to gain fat… if you’re going to weigh daily you have to treat it as a data point nothing more. It’s the long term trends that are interesting and tell me stuff about my bodies’ behaviours around periods and ovulation. I use an app called happy scale and it does all sorts of clever calculations looking at my weight trends not just my weight that day. If I ate what you are eating every day I would lose weight fast (and be hungry even on MJ). But if I ate that for one day I wouldn’t expect it to be immediately reflected on the scales. Daily weighing is not for everyone - I’ve had to train myself not to let it bother me…

Going back to the original post - I’m actually surprised by how much I can eat and not gain weight. I’ve eaten the same dinner as the rest of my family every evening since I’ve been on MJ (sometimes a smaller portion admittedly) and I’m consistently losing weight. However, I’m at worst peri menopausal so things may change in the future. I do feel sad that I’ve realised there are certain ‘trigger’ foods which I am going to have to accept I can never eat again. I can’t eat crisps in moderation without WLI and I think I may just have to accept that means I can’t eat them at all.